


little glass box

by Catzzy



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Mentions of Death, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catzzy/pseuds/Catzzy
Summary: They leave him in the room longer than he expects, and the days seem to mush together when there’s no way of telling the time.By the fifth or sixth day, he’s panicking. He’s wondering how long it is until they decide that they’ve scared him enough and let him go. Or until someone—anyonejust comes in and talks to him, because he’s losing his mind.(Peter’s taken to the Raft, and he’s losing hope anyone will come and save him. Febwhump prompts: dark state of mind, mind games, glass, post-tragedy, creator’s choice).
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 26
Kudos: 267





	little glass box

He doesn’t know why they’ve cuffed him like that, because he’s far from a threat. His hands are cold, fingertips almost blue and wrists aching from the countless times he’s pulled too hard by accident.

There’s no clock. No way to tell how long it’s been, but he’s starting to feel drowsy. Starting to feel like it’s been at least a few hours since they dragged him in here.

He doesn’t realise he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up to a clang.

There’s a taser lying on the table, and his fists clench while the voice in the back of his mind tells him _they’re just trying to scare you!_

“Enjoying your stay?”

He frowns, looking at the door. “They told me you’d let me go after—”

“They were wrong,” the man, who he almost certainly recognizes to be Ross. “You’ve been busy this year,” he says, slamming down a black file.

Peter doesn’t answer.

“Came back to the land of the living. Went on a killing spree in Europe, came back _here_ pretending you did nothing wrong.”

Peter stared at the file, heart beating so fast he feels like it might just fall out of his chest. His mind falters. Should he answer? Is he supposed to say anything?

“Not answering won’t change the facts. It wasn’t a question,” Ross says, like he’s read his mind.

Peter clears his throat. “I didn’t—it was—SHIELD can tell you it was—”

“Quentin Beck? The man you murdered. That was a whole other mess, wasn’t it?”

_Murder. Muder, muder, murder._ He looks back down at the table, not sure of what to say next. It’d be smart to keep his mouth shut, he realizes. There’s no telling how they’ll use what he tells them.

Ross sits across from him. “I just need a few things from you. Then you’ll be on your way. No questions asked. That sound good?”

Peter’s frown intensifies as he stares back, internally pleading for it to be something he knows and can answer. He nods.

“Great. Firstly, where did Beck get all that _stuff_. Why’d he involve you?”

Peter opens his mouth, then falls flat. 

_Thud, thud, thudthudthud_.

Incriminating himself isn’t the best way to get this started. Instead, he shakes his head, shrugging weakly, “I don’t know.” His face feels hot.

“He followed you to Europe. He could’ve pulled that shit off without ever needing you. So why was he after you, a high-school kid?” Ross asks again, brows raised and waiting for an explanation.

Peter looks to the door, “I want a lawyer.”

“You don’t get one, per the Accords,” Ross says, face so neutral he can’t tell if the man is bluffing, but he leans on the ‘not’ side because if the Accords were fair, then he wouldn’t be here.

“Then I want a phone call.”

Ross slams his hand down on the steel, face changing from irritated to straight again, “I assure you, Mr Parker, you’re free to go once you answer. As you might understand, Beck’s actions were hard to miss. We’re facing pushback.”

Peter swallows, then fidgets. “I had tech that he wanted.”

“What tech?”

“Artificial Intelligence. EDITH. They were glasses Mr Stark made and he knew I had them.”

“You just gave it to him?”

His eyes go back and forth across the table. He didn’t just ‘give it to him’, he was upset. He was _sad_ and sure, that’s not the best thing to say to the Secretary of State, so he panics, trying to think of what else he can offer that make sense of the stupid decision he made.

“Mr Parker.”

He shakes his head, “no. No, he—look, Mr Fury said we needed him. He was more—he was experienced, like an Avenger. He took hard hits and he always got back up and he looked like he knew what he was doing. I didn’t, I—I gave them to him. I thought he could help.”

“Help with the mess _he_ was making?”

Peter feels like screaming. “ _No_ , because I didn’t know that at the time. SHIELD didn’t know.”

Ross stares at him in indifference. “Okay. Well, you killed him. So, where’s EDITH now?”

“I gave them back.”

“To whom?”

“To Mr Stark’s friend.”

“Does this friend have a name?”

Peter scoffs, “they’re back somewhere they can’t cause harm.”

“Yes, sure. Until they decide you’re ‘mature’ enough to take them back and we end up right back here.”

“This won’t happen again, Mr Ross, I can assure you.”

“I know that.”

“The footage was altered.”

Peter knows this. He lived it, and now he’s growing impatient, moving his knee under the table and sighing heavily to let the air in.

* * *

He doesn’t understand why they lock him up. He answered the questions. He answered them as honestly as he could, without getting anyone in trouble, without getting _himself_ in trouble, and he still finds himself trapped in a glass box.

The other rooms are empty, and there are many. He wonders if this is where Mr Stark had said they’d kept the other Avengers after the airport fiasco.

For now, they look unused. Like no one has ever even stepped foot in them. He can’t even imagine them ever being trapped here. 

He waits for someone to come back and ask him something else. Ask him to do something bad, because this is where bad things happen. He knows that much. He thinks about what it might be. What they might ask him to do in exchange for his release.

He waits for them to ask him something impossible, like find the other Avengers, or to give them EDITH, or—or—he can’t think. He doesn’t know anything else, which means he’s not that useful to keep around. That might be a bad thing.

He squeezes his fingers, pacing up and down for the first hour, then sitting down. Then, leaning his forehead against the glass.

No one comes. He can’t see outside because there are no windows, and there’s no clock here either. What’s the time? He doesn’t know. May must be going insane. Or maybe not yet. Maybe tomorrow morning.

* * *

They leave him in the box longer than he expects, and the days seem to mush together when there’s no way of telling the time.

And he’s realising that he’s completely alone. There’s no one there to threaten him or 

By the fifth or sixth day, he’s panicking. He’s wondering how long it is until they decide that they’ve scared him enough and let him go. Or until someone— _anyone_ comes to talk to him, because he’s losing his mind. 

The _when_ turns to an _if_ a little later on.

He never sees anyone else. Just wakes up to food. 

He tries to get around it. Keeps pacing even though he knows he’s too tired. Then he lays down, trying his best to keep his mind alert even if his eyes are closed.

Too much time passes. He feels hungrier than usual, but they still don’t come. 

He drifts away when he can’t keep up any longer, and he still wakes up to food. Common sense tells him that this is definitely done to mess with him. They’re keeping him isolated.

He tries not to go insane in here all by himself.

Then, the lights go dim. There’s none in his room, and he flattens his face against the glass to stare intensely at the yellow that he can make out down the corridor. 

It’s dark. Maybe too dark for him, because he feels on edge nearly all the time and his mind is constantly telling him to _look down the corridor!_

Humming to himself becomes one of his favourite things to do. Sometimes its tuneless, but all he needs is something to hear. Something that he can _listen_ to. 

It works for a while. He talks to himself, at the risk of sounding like he’s lost it, but most of the time he pretends. He pretends like he’s giving an interview to CNN after being outed as Spider-Man. That definitely keeps him busy.

He pretends that he’s a billionaire too, speaking about his next project, and how Spider-Man was so long ago that he doesn’t even remember. 

Interviewing becomes his next favourite pass time. No one is there. No one listens, except him. He hears his voice bounce off the glass, and he sometimes smiles when he’s talking about something he likes.

That becomes tiring, after a while. There’s not enough water here, and his throat gets dry too quickly. It stings, and they won’t give him more until he falls asleep. 

He spends a lot of his time laying on his chest, arm hanging off the bed and face staring at the ground. Too much time is passing. 

His fingernail scratches the steel bedpost, voice tired and low, “what? No. Of course I didn’t jump on a spaceship. That would be stupid,” he mutters, listening dumbly to the scraping, “now that I’m President, there’re gonna be changes.”

He sighs, breaking into a cry. His body shakes, and he twists onto his side, sobbing and clamping his eyes shut.

* * *

He realizes he’s seeing things. And the realization comes a little late.

Flashing lights and long, monotonous beeps seem to break the silence. He tries to see where they’re coming from. They’re always gone when he looks.

He thinks they’re messing with him and making him think he’s crazy. Making him think he’s seeing things. 

The light is never there. It’s too bright to just disappear so quickly when he looks. 

Then, the sounds come. Long beeps. High-pitched. He tries to find them too. Tries to see if there are any speakers, but there’s only one, right in the middle, and the sound isn’t coming from there.

He realizes it’s him. They disappear when he thinks about them – return when his mind starts to wander off.

He thinks he’s sleeping too much.

* * *

He starts seeing people. Not real people.

They come in flashes. He sees them in the corner of his eye, and they too, like the sound and light, are gone when he looks for them.

He doesn’t even make out the faces. They appear like ghosts, coming and going whenever they feel like. 

He goes on giving interviews, which have turned to fantasy.

He’s President, announcing a national emergency when a huge tsunami hits. He’s telling the interviewers that he must return to his roots and help the only way he knows how – Spider-Man. Everyone is shocked. He gave that up a long time ago. 

Of course, he rescues people. He talks about climbing into the worst-hit areas and his efforts alongside the rescue-teams. People praise him. They tell him _no President has ever done that!_

He smiles.

MJ is with him in all his scenarios. He talks about funny things they’ve done together, even if most of them have never actually happened. They’re stories he’s seen on TV or with May and Ben, and he makes them his. He steals the memories.

* * *

He stops giving interviews. 

He stops looking for lights and the sounds.

He stops looking for people.

He sits there, staring at the wall, or lays on the bed, focused on the ceiling. Nothing else to do. He breathes loud on purpose, to keep himself sane in a place void of sound.

* * *

He stares at the ceiling, laying limp on the floor. Eyes feel sunken when he traces them with his fingers.

“Peter Parker? Oh, you didn’t hear? He’s dead. Yeah, he died in a box, couldn’t even get out of it,” he breathes a laugh, “I know, so _stupid_.”

The ringing is back, blaring in his ears like a distant car alarm that never goes out. He can’t stop it. He doesn’t have the keys.

He’ll die in here. He feels dead.

* * *

He screams. So loud and so intensely that his jaw hurts. He stops and inhales, then goes again, palms up against the glass.

He steps back, then throws his fists against it. Once. Twice. Three times.

His knuckles are already bleeding, but he has to get out! _What’s a little pain for freedom? Just a little pain, Peter! You can’t handle it, that’s why you’re in here!_ ” 

He keeps hitting.

Blood. 

Gas.

* * *

He can’t hurt himself, he figures out. Not much, anyway. At least now he feels less bad for not trying this earlier. 

The blood dries. Goes from red to a dark shade of brown in a matter of— _hours? Days? Weeks?_ He can’t tell. 

He gets too many headaches. Starts his day with one sometimes, other times it pounds his skull so hard that he wants to throw up, which he also never does.

* * *

One day they turn off the heat. Or turn up the air conditioning. One of the two, because he swears the room is freezing by the end of the day. 

The glass is misty, and his teeth are clattering as he presses his face against it once again, trying to see if someone is watching him or ready to step in if things go bad.

No one is. He gets back. Something takes over, because the next thing he knows, he’s smashing his head against it so hard that he swears his brain is rattled.

He watched a movie on that once. Something about rugby players and brain injuries because they’re falling all the time and they don’t realise they’re out of time until it’s too late.

He wonders if he’s out of time and he just hasn’t realized. Just hasn’t accepted yet that he’ll never get out of this place. 

How did Captain America escape? Oh, he was never in here. He was the one who helped his friends escape. Does _he_ have any friends who can do that for him? No. No, he doesn’t.

He’d say Mr Stark, but Mr Stark is dead. And none of the Avengers know him well enough to go on a prison-breakout mission for him – he doubts they even know he’s gone. Maybe Mr Rhodes. But he’s busy. Happy would, he’s dating May afterall. But they’ll probably never figure out he’s here.

His head is bleeding, or bruised, because he can see the gas seeping in again. 

He laughs. Loudly. “Don’t let me hit my head! It’s dangerous!” he screeches, then he’s falling back.

* * *

He tries to move the bed. Throws the mattress aside and gets ready to smash the steel into the glass. 

He can’t even get it to budge. He’s weak. He pushes, but it’s not enough to break the glass. It angers him.

Angers him enough to start scratching at the mattress until the cotton comes out. He could eat it. He _can_ eat it and he’ll probably stop breathing and die and that’ll be fine.

He stares at it. No one watching him would think he’s doing anything remotely dangerous by the looks of it. He grabs a handful of the fluff, and it’s soft. Softer than anything he’s felt in a long time.

It stays under his gaze, in his hands, until he realizes it’s a stupid idea. He probably won’t die. They won’t let him. Or he’ll cough it up and just look dumb on the CCTV. The people watching him will laugh.

He turns to the steel instead. He can work with steel. If it won’ t break the glass, then it can break him. 

Fidgeting to it, he grabs to one of the legs, pulling and pulling until he hears a creak. It doesn’t move past that. His arms shake uncontrollably just trying.

It doesn’t work. It doesn’t come loose. He thinks back to eating the wool. He grabs his face, squinting and rocking himself. 

Decides against it again.

* * *

One night he wakes up mid-sleep to the sound of _whooshing_ and swoshing, which isn’t all unusual. Not dissimilar to the sound of rushing blood in his ears during times of extreme panic, but this is _loud_.

He blinks quickly, trying to send away the burning sensation in his eyes as he starts to sit up. _It’s nothing. It’s nothingnothingnothing—_

He flinches when he puts his feet down, retreating back to the bed when something sticks to his trousers. Sticky. He leans over and stares at the steadily rising water. Water? 

It’s reaching the bed too quickly, and he corners himself as if that’ll stop him from drowning when this coffin fills all the way. He stands up.

The mattress drowns, and his feet sink in all of a sudden, throwing him off balance. He steadies himself against the wall, making his way to the glass.

He throws his hands against it.

“Hey! Hey! There’s—there’s water here! Hey!” he screams, looking back down as it reaches his knees. It’s freezing cold and no one’s nearby.

It reaches his chest, and then he’s fully panicking. Sure, he wanted to eat the cotton, but there was a possibility they’d come in and he’d make a fool of them escape. Here there is no escape. Not if he’s stuck in here when it reaches the top.

It takes him in, engulfing him in darkness.

He doesn’t have time to take one last breath and breathes as soon as he’s under.

Water stings his throat, and his body screams for air as he chokes, trying to hit at the glass pathetically. 

He keeps on hitting, again and again and again until his hand hits it without resistance, and he’s suddenly on the ground instead of in the water.

He takes a big breath, and his entire body shakes. 

He’s standing against the glass. He’s going insane. He imagined drowning. It was real though. It was too real to not be.

He laughs, scratching the back of his head. “Won’t be too bad.”

* * *

Things start to get insane. He wakes up to something in the corner of his eyes, lying still.

He gets up immediately. There’s blood, and there’s a body, a _dead_ body. His breath stops as he stares, then feels his head start to shake and breathing quicken.

When he gets up, he leans over to catch a glimpse of his face. “Ben.”

They brought him back. _They—they knew what he looked like! They made someone look like him and they killed him again!_

He backs away, and he’s throwing his fists against the glass again. “Hey! Someone’s—someone’s dead! A guy! Hey!” he screams as loud as he can, and it’s a mistake, because his voice is too dry and it hurts yelling like that.

When he turns back around, it’s not Ben. It’s May. He blinks a few times to make sure he’s not dreaming again. _It’s May. Her hair, her nails, her bracelet—that’s her!_

Still, he gets down next to her, touches her hand, then immediately flinches. “No, no, no,” his breath hitches, and he’s back at the glass, smashing it as hard as he can. 

The words coming out of his mouth are jumbled. They don’t make sense, not even to him, but he continues to speak. About his dead aunt in the corner, the water and the bed.

His voice is hoarse by the time he’s too tired to talk. “Comeon, comeon, come—comeon, open this—open it!” he gets down on the floor, face resting uncomfortably against the glass. 

His head perks up suddenly. _Don’t sleep_ , his mind tells him. He could try that. _They’ll just make you,_ the other voice says, and he nods.

“You’re right,” he says aloud.

* * *

The sounds, one day, turn loud. Like someone is stomping.

He doesn’t move, though. That takes energy, and he’s lost most of that, and when he wastes it exploring the newest manifestation of his wild brain, it only makes him angry.

But when the doors slide open, and he sees them do just that, he moves to a sitting position.

His eyes burn but he can’t stop frowning. Feels like he’s never seen anyone so close before. 

The man gets down on one knee in front of him, touching his shoulder first. The name is being thrown around his brain, but he can’t seem to pin it down.

He stares at the hand, like it’s something foreign and he’s never seen _arms_ before. He touches it, tightening his hold around it, touching something that’s not cold or himself.

He’s pulled in for a tight hug, and he really doesn’t mind.

He doesn’t mind the way that his head is buried into the shoulder, or the way that the back of his head is being supported by a real hand.

* * *

He stares out the window, and when the car stops, he can’t stop blinking at the sky. It’s brighter than he remembers. 

No one asks him to get out and start moving. They let him watch the clouds. 

His eyes burn, begging to close and sleep, but he won’t let them. He keeps staring.

They ask him if he wants to go inside, making sure to avoid standing in front of him and disrupting his very perfect view of blue. The sun. So bright and happy. _That’s it. Happy’s here. It’s Happy. How did he forget that name?_

He doesn’t reply, so indulged in getting the name right, but he guesses _that_ in itself is a response. They don’t ask again, but they don’t leave him either, for which he’s grateful.

Happy sits in the drivers’ seat, door open and constantly switching between putting his leg in and out. 

Mr Stark sits with him, he realizes. Then next to Happy. Then outside, pacing. He listens to how unsteady the heartbeat is sometimes. He keeps listening to it. Can’t be sure whether he’s really sitting beside a dead person, and maybe that’s supposed to give it away. 

Mr Stark is meant to be dead. If he’s seeing Mr Stark, then he’s insane. He’s seeing things. He looks around the car quickly. _The car is the box,_ he nods, because _of course!_

But the door is open. Can he leave? If he can leave, he might not be in the box. But he might be having some crazy hallucinations right now so that can’t be right.

His breath staggers as his mind puzzles itself trying to put pieces that don’t fit together. He feels trapped. _Just sit here._ He scoffs, _stupid, can’t just sit here and do nothing!_

Something touches his shoulder and he moves back against the leather, looking to his left. It’s Happy again. “Peter, let’s go inside.”

He wants to. Of course, he does. But he can’t. He can’t move until he knows he’s actually out here and not in _there_ , and if he goes back inside, it might all fall apart. He won’t mind if the fantasy plays out a little longer.

He listens to a call to May, and she’s telling Happy, on the other end, that _you can’t just let him sit in the car the whole day!_ even though _he_ doesn’t understand why he can’t. He’s not asking for much. He’s not asking for anything, actually.

Happy gets out of the car again, and he can see Tony shaking his head quickly to stop him, without saying a word, but Happy gives him a look.

Then he’s there. 

“Come on, Peter, your eyes must be tired, buddy.”

His eyes _are_ tired, but he likes the sky. He likes the light. He can’t get enough of it. He can’t let it disappear, because that feels like hell and he should know. 

Tony scratches the back of his head behind Happy, grimacing like they’re overstepping, even though they’re really not. Normal people go inside. They don’t sit in cars in thirty-degrees with the sun out, refusing to talk or move to the dead people they see.

“Peter.”

Tony taps on Happy’s shoulder, and the man gets back up, moving back and unsuccessful in his mission.

Tony takes his spot, sighing and extending a hand.

“It’s hot out here,” he says.

Peter doesn’t disagree. It was cold in _there_ , and when he stepped out, he thought he wouldn’t get tired of the sun. He is. This could be a test, though, and if he just snaps out of it sometime soon, he might be able to break out.

Maybe they know he’s just gone insane and now they’re observing him. Maybe he wants to see Happy and May and Mr Stark so badly that they’re what he’s seeing in place of whoever these people are. 

“You aren’t hot?” asks Tony, head tilted.

Peter finally meets his eyes, “I am,” he says, scared to continue.

Tony smiles, like he’s surprised Peter can talk. “We can go inside. You can sit by the window.”

He knows he can, but he’ll be trapped inside – he’ll lose his _mind_ if he has to step into a closed room ever again. 

“What’s—what’s your name?” he asks.

The man’s face distorts into confusion, “it’s me. Mr Stark?”

Peter nods, then shakes his head. “No, your real name,” he asks again, and he can hear how scratchy his own voice sounds. This is the longest sentence he’s spoken to anyone in months.

“That is my—I should’ve told you before. I’m not sure how to now. They took me to this—”

Peter closes his eyes in an attempt to block out the excuse. This man doesn’t understand that he doesn’t want that story, he wants the _real deal_.

When he opens them again, Happy’s dragging Tony back. Two people trying to decide on how best to approach a crazy person. 

Happy looks at him. “Do you know who I am?”

Peter decides to shake his head. He knows who Happy is, but this isn’t Happy. 

“Did they—” Happy cups his cheek all of a sudden, and he looks up in confusion. “They hurt you? Is that why you can’t remember?”

He breathes slowly, then clenches his fists, staring out behind him. It’s his chance, he decides, then pushes as hard as he can.

Hears the two men shout in confusion. He runs as fast he can, but it’s not fast and he’s really feeling the effects of his bones deteriorating for months and months because he can’t even go in a straight direction. 

They’re after him, but he’s doing something right because they’re still far away. Their heartbeats are, anyway. He continues on, then trips on something, and he’s not fast enough in steadying himself.

He faceplants onto the ground.

The legs in the distance are getting closer. A glimpse of the car he’d just been in, the cabin door. _The swing_. The swing he sat on with Happy during the funeral. 

He closes his eyes.

* * *

He wakes up inside, to the sounds of birds chirping. 

He hears people talk outside, mostly about him. Mostly about how best to handle the situation because they think he’s too _traumatized._ Maybe he is. Would he know? He _does_ know. He’s not acting normal right now. He’s being too obvious about all of it.

“I don’t know,” Tony’s voice beams in the kitchen, then quietens again. He doesn’t have the energy to listen in. His ears are having a hard time doing that today.

He thinks back to how he ended up in here, then remembers. Remembers running away in the haze that he was still _there_ and not _here_. Still doesn’t know where _here_ is. Can’t be sure if he really is, since he never made it past the living room.

He rubs his hands together, sitting up in the bed. The sun is setting, and the room is an orangey color now. Everything seems clear. 

Something near the door creaks, and he quickly turns to find a child staring at him. Morgan. She frowns like she’s observing, a Frozen bag hanging low in her hand. “Peter?”

He stares like he’s never seen a child before. He nods, unable to get the right words out.

She keeps looking. “You wanna make something?” she asks, walking inside. She slips to her knees in the middle of the room, turning the bag upside down and emptying its contents.

Picking up two cups of Play-Do, she looks back up, extending a small hand to him. “You can make things with this,” she says.

He reaches forwards and takes it from her. 

She undoes her cap, then takes the blue mush in her hand, twisting and rolling it with her fingers, “it’s easy, like this,” she says, and then she’s indulged in making her own project. “You can make houses and trees and people and houses and it’s so fun! But mom’s always like ‘no, don’t play with that!’ but that’s just because she’s boring but dad’s not and he even plays with me—"

She rambles on, then all of a sudden, she’s standing right in front of him. He frowns. 

“You don’t wanna play?” she asks, genuinely confused on what fool would turn down her offer to play with Play-Do. 

Before he can answer, she’s taking the cup back from him. “Here, take this,” she slaps the flattened star she’s attempted to craft in his hand. “Try and make this.”

He presses the dough against his palm with his fingers, feeling it roll and twist. “Where are we?”

She doesn’t respond, busy with playing with the stuff in her hands. 

“Morgan.”

She looks up, “in my house, remember when you came here?” she asks, then returns to playing.

He looks around. If this is his imagination, he really must be losing it because he really can’t tell the difference. 

“ _Morgan!_ ”

She sighs in a huff, then turns her face to the door. “I’m playing!” she screams, making him flinch.

“ _Morgan! Come down here!_ ”

She sighs again. “Why?”

“ _I’m counting to three!_ ”

She tuts in frustration, then looks at him. “I’ll be right back!” she tells him, like he’ll disappear. Then she’s running out of the room, leaving her things scattered on the floor.

He stands up after her, looking at the clock to his left. Real enough. And if it’s real, he made himself look pretty stupid running away and collapsing in the trees. 

“Yeah,” he says to himself. He should go and apologize. He can hear the conversation again, which has changed from him to making fun of May and Happy’s matching outfits.

When he’s by the door, he gets back down, sitting up against the wall and listening to them talk downstairs. 

“ _Coming from you, and by the way, we all still remember what he got her Christmas 2014?_ ” 

Pepper laughs, and May is asking what’s happening. 

“ _Okay, May, imagine this. A huge, and I mean huge teddy bear, right? So big, it doesn’t fit in the door. He had to call special guys to even get the thing in and—_ ”

“ _It was a display of my affection for my girlfriend at the time, I don’t see what’s so funny. You said you loved it, Pep!_ ”

They’re all laughing. “ _I don’t think she could’ve said anything else, though,_ ” May says, and Pepper shouts a “yes!”.

“ _Okay, well, thank you for making fun of me. Don’t come crying when you get nothing next time._ ”

“ _Really? You’re really getting me nothing?_ ”

“ _That’s what you called trapped._ ”

“ _I’m not, since the bear was so hated._ ”

“ _That’s okay. I’ll get something from you,_ ” Pepper counters, and then Morgan’s complaining about the banana she’s being fed.

He can’t go in there. Not yet. They’ll all stop and stare, and he doesn’t want that. He’s only grateful Morgan didn’t say exactly what she was doing upstairs, but she’s a kid. She doesn’t think it’s important to tell them that the person they’re waiting for downstairs is completely awake.

He guesses the relief is short-lived, because the next person speak is her, and she’s asking if she can go back upstairs.

“ _Bring your things down, Mo, Uncle Happy’s been missing you,_ ” Pepper’s saying.

Morgan makes a sound of disagreement, “I’m with Peter, he’s playing with me,” she answers.

The adults go quiet, and he curses, quickly standing up. He looks around. Contemplates leaving through the window, but that’s so stupid, why would he do that? 

He decides, instead, to go down before they can come up. 

He can already hear things shuffle and footsteps head his way. He counters them, leaving the room and walking down the corridor to the stairs. 

May’s first, running up so fast that the stairs creak. She’s relieved, looking him up and down before she takes him in his arms.

He buries his head, and she has her hand around his head and she’s whispering things—whatever seems to be coming into her mind. _I missed—Peter, I’m just—I’m never letting go_.

He closes his eyes, and he’s crying. He missed her. He missed her so, so much. Every single day there, he knew how much worse it was for her.

“Where did you go?” she cries, voice barely above a whisper, as she pulls back, leaning her forehead against his, hand cupping his cheek as they look into each other’s eyes. “Where’d you go.” It’s not a question.

He stays in her grip, irrationally afraid that she’ll disappear if he lets go.

* * *

She takes him back to the room he woke up in, if only to avoid the gaze of the group of equally warmhearted people waiting downstairs to meet her kid

Her hand is cupping his neck as she looks at him – really looks at him. So does he. He’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, eyes taking in all of her features so fast like he’s trying to memorize something.

She’s doing the same to him, she realizes. His hurting, sunken eyes, hair longer than she ever liked—than _he_ ever liked. He looks sad. Too sad to be Peter.

“I don’t—I d’nno where I was,” he’s saying, and she looks back into his eyes, “there was—there was nothing, May, for _so_ long,” his voice cracks too many times, and she nods, like she understands when she really doesn’t. She takes him in her arms again.

His face is in the nook of her neck, and he’s crying, and then she is too, “you’re back now.”

He nods against her, then starts to move away, “but I can’t tell. I can’t tell, I can’t—” he looks up at her. “Tell me something you’ve never told me.”

She sniffles, “kinda putting me on the spot,” she jokes, then realizes he’s completely serious. He’s scared and he needs her to do this for him.

“Okay. Okay. The day you didn’t come back, I—I called Happy. We tried to find you, but Happy—well, you know how he is with computers. As bad as me, so we didn’t really—uh, we got Tony. That’s why you’re afraid? He wasn’t gone. He’s here. Gave him a metal arm. I got to meet the King of Wakanda. Would’ve been cooler if I wasn’t crying,” she laughs softly, then realizes she’s telling the story all wrong, skipping over everything he needs to hear. “They still couldn’t find you. I still checked your room every single day because I thought—I don’t know what I thought. You were just gone, and you were all I had,” she can barely herself speak.

He doesn’t seem convinced. She can tell by the way his jaw is moving and nails scratching at his palm.

“I decided to marry Ben when he took you in,” she tells him before she can stop herself. 

He looks at her, waiting for her to continue.

She shrugs, then breathes in with a sad chuckle, “he, uh, _we_ were just getting to know each other. We were dating six months. He got a call in the morning, really early. He got off and he was—he was crying. Trying not to, maybe because I was there. He told me he had to go. Didn’t tell me anything else.

“He came back in the evening. You were with him. You were so small. So tiny, and scared. You didn’t know what was happening, and he was—he was too upset to explain it to you in baby words. But he told me what happened and he said ‘that’s my kid now, May, and I get it, if you can’t be with me anymore’,” she stops, remembering back to the conversation. Remembering how upset Ben had been and how that one decision led her to this exact moment. “And I’d be stupid to let the kindest man and the cutest kid I’d ever met just slip from my fingers, even though Holly wasn’t happy with that. But I knew we had a—a family. That it was what I wanted—what Ben wanted.”

“Did you ever regret it?” he asks, and she tilts her head with a frown.

“Never,” she answers before he can even finish that thought, putting her hand on the back of his head, “because you’re the best kid I could ask for. And I love you so much.”

* * *

She stays with him until he sleeps, right there in her arms, so warm and loving and welcoming and so many other things that the glass box wasn’t.

When he wakes, he’s alone. She’s not there. The house seems quiet, and he guesses she’s sleeping somewhere. She wouldn’t leave him, right? _Of course she wouldn’t._

He swallows, and frowns hard as he listens out for the heartbeats. Hears a fast one. Morgan’s. Three more. One is Happy’s. He can’t place the other three, though he guesses he doesn’t need to. He knows who’s here.

He kicks the duvet off, rolling his sleeves up and disgusted at how sticky and sweaty he feels. 

In the next few minutes, he finds himself outside, sitting on the porch. It’s a little cold, but the air rushing past him, breathing it in—it feels nice. It feels good and refreshing and he wants to keep that feeling.

He clenches and unclenches his fists. Realises he still can’t do it properly without his whole arm shaking.

The door opens, and he looks back.

Tony stands there, surprisingly awake, or maybe he hasn’t slept – that’s not unlike him, but he doesn’t know Mr Stark anymore. Tony closes the door slowly behind him, then starts to make his way over.

“Hey,” he says, and Peter feels the tears already coming, throat itching to let them fall. “You—you wanna go get something to eat?” asks Tony, then his face immediately changes to guilt.

Peter stares again, then shakes his head. 

The man sighs, “sorry. That was—I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he admits. “I was up. I thought you’d wake up ‘coz you slept to early and . . .” he trails off. 

“How did you come back?” Peter asks before he can stop himself.

Tony sighs, “I never left?” he asks more than tells.

“You did. In a casket—I was _right_ here,” he says, looking down at the wooden floorboards.

The man opens his mouth again, but nothing comes out for a few seconds. “There were—lots of weirdly, magically gifted people there that day,” he offers.

It’s not really an explanation at all. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be scared. They didn’t hurt me.”

Tony grimaces, then all of a sudden, he’s sitting beside him. “Of course they hurt you.”

“No, they didn’t. They just left me there.”

“It’s called solitary confinement,” says Tony, “and I know you know what that is, you watch too much TV not to,” he continues.

Peter breathes out a laugh, “I was losing my mind in there, Mr Stark,” he confesses. But is it really a confession when he’s telling every single person he sees? 

“I know,” Tony says, and Peter’s mind asks, _how?_

“I was—I was seeing things and—and hearing these noises that weren’t there and I was—I was going insane,” his voice wavers.

* * *

Tony puts an arm around his shoulder, “that’s what it does,” he tells the kid, looking to him, though he’s lost at staring at the lake in the distance. Mesmerized by it.

“You think they’d have kept me there forever if you hadn’t shown up?” he asks through the trance, breathing slow and steady. 

Tony again opens his mouth before he has the answer, but at least Peter isn’t watching him this time. Truly, he doesn’t know what to tell him. He knows the answer is probably yes. The answer is probably worse than yes, it’s along the lines of ‘they would’ve killed you sometime soon and no one would know what happened’, because he knows what Ross and his like-minded cockroaches are like. He knows that to him, they’re a joke, but to someone like Peter, they’re terrifyingly dangerous.

“Maybe,” he chooses to say instead, “but I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“If there are all these alternate timelines, I think I’m dead in a lot of them,” he says out of nowhere, and Tony feels his heart twist at the thought.

He gives the boy a nudge, “then so am I.”

“I’m still scared, Mr Stark,” he says after a few seconds.

Tony inhales sharply, “I’m right here. We’re all right here.”

“What if they find me again?”

“They won’t. I’m making sure that never happens again.” 

“What if they still find me and take me back?” he asks, voice quiet and trembling.

“They can’t,” Tony shrugs, like it’s obvious, like what Peter is asking is something unbelievable.

Peter frowns at the answers. “How can you know that?”

“I brought you back from the dead. What makes you think I can’t take on a few idiots in badges?” he asks, brows raised.

Peter’s hugging him out of nowhere, and he returns it. “I missed you.”

“Try being me for five whole years,” he says, resting his chin on the top of Peter’s head, “I missed you more.”

“Try being in ‘solitary confinement’ for two months,” Peter retorts, and his mind freezes. 

Two months. _Two months?_ “Buddy, kid,” he says slowly, “more like six months,” he says.

He feels the kid stiffen under his hold for a few seconds before he relaxes again, “okay,” he says, and Tony’s unsure if this is the start of a breakdown, but he talks again, “try being in solitary confinement for _six_ months, then.”

He laughs, “alright, can’t top that,” he relents, still afraid of overstepping. It’s been too long, and his mind is having a little difficulty accepting that this is the same kid he saw on Titan. That he’s only aged a few months since then and not five years like him.

“You have a metal arm. I think you can,” Peter says, pulling away, “how does that feel?”

“It _feels_ as cool as it looks,” Tony answers, waving his arm. “The real one was expiring anyway. Time for an upgrade.”

“Yeah. Going for a full-on body replacement,” Peter nods sarcastically, hand hovering over his own chest, “except real limbs don’t expire.”

“Firstly, wouldn’t be the worst thing. Secondly, I’m serious, you should’ve seen that thing. It was—God, it has hanging on by a thread. Couldn’t even do this—” he slices his arm through the air, “—or this—” he extends it out with speed and smiles.

Peter watches, “that’s true, but that was probably because you were getting old, I mean, what are you? Getting up there in your—your sixties?”

Tony’s eyes widen, “six—how long do you think you were gone?”

“Must’ve been more than five years, I mean you did _not_ age—”

“I should’ve left you inside.”

“You couldn’t. You’d miss me too much,” Peter shrugs casually.

He sighs in relief, in happiness. “I would. I would miss you a lot.” 

“Now you’re getting emotional.”

“You’re making me emotional.”

“Nope, stop,” Peter says, playfully pushing him, “I feel like my brain is swiping any opportunity it finds to cry.”

He scoffs, though not unkindly, “maybe you should let it.”

“And risk my manliness?”

“Okay, alright, Batman, let’s head to bed then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Another late addition because my biggest personality trait is never doing anything on time✌🏼 Hope you liked it :)


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